Gambling Corrupts

Do we need to gamble just because the law says we can?

Submitted by Amerikaner Sportsfan

Several years ago, I wrote on attending the NCAA men’s basketball tournament aka March Madness for the American Sun. Experiencing it again in Milwaukee this year, there are notable changes. The magic is a little dimmer.

The games themselves are still fun to watch. An upset makes the day fun and gives an electric jolt to the crowd. Coeds, alumni and bands make the crowd unlike professional basketball’s audience. You are guaranteed fun. These are college students playing at a slightly lower level and on average slightly closer to regular human size.

One noticeable change in system though is the effect of NIL money in college sports. NIL money is name, image and likeness money that is collected and paid to players. Outside sponsorships have wormed their way into college athletics, removing the fig leaf that it was amateur competition. In defense of this, it was wrong for teams to sell merchandise obviously about a player and never give him a cut. It’s the execution of NIL that turns this into a small professional system. NIL money combined with another procedural change “transfer portal” makes experienced players who are good but not good enough for the NBA hired guns in a move similar to the NBA. Transfers used to have to sit out a year. No longer now due to the portal. Combined with NIL money, players can move for cash and change a team. Several teams I watched were staffed with players I recall a year or two earlier at other schools. This allows bigger programs to poach talented players from mid-majors and small schools. It bolsters established, major competitors. The free agency vibe poisons the mood a bit.

While that is on the court, the biggest change is in the stands. Phone use during the game is rampant, but it is not for communications. Gambling is now on the radar for discourse as more states legalize it, and seems like everyone in the crowd is wagering on games. I loved going to games to experience live competition but enjoyed talking to other fans. Now the conversations during breaks are fewer in number because someone is building a same game parlay on their phone app. Conversations center around bets won, lost or made. During games, fans constantly go to their phones due to in game push notifications about bets. It’s digital crack with the reward being a small dopamine hit and a $20 win. The weirdest jumbotron advertisement was for fans to not abuse players for lost bets.

It is a silly complaint but do we need to gamble on everything? It permeated our investment world, which shortened the average length of time a stock was held and created AirBNB real estate speculators. It is widespread and compulsive as the age of those tooling around on DraftKings and FanDuel were 18-81. To paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, it gives the poor the illusory something for nothing they desperately want. They want to make money for nothing.

March Madness is a moneymaker for all parties involved: host cities, the NCAA, schools and television networks. As our society must monetize, every single dollar is squeezed out of a three week event. The charm of the event is seeing a team staffed with future accountants, logistics managers and salesmen pull off a win versus a stacked team with future NBA players. Maybe an overlooked 22 year old goes off for three games and plays himself into the NBA. The transfer portal and NIL turns any talented but not NBA level player into a hired gun. It feels more professional and more like the NBA, which is a sport sliding into WWE territory for integrity. We do not need every sport to be about money.

The gambling thing is another forced money corruption of the game. Making bets with a bookie who might beat you up to collect is dirty. Losing money via an app sanitizes it, even as it is just as corrupting. We cleaned up a vice and made it an app. We also made it something that could be easily hidden until the account needs more and more top ups, leading to bankruptcy or suicide.

Just because we can does not mean we should. This is one of the problems of our technological world. It is a problem throughout society. We probably should not do gain of function research, but we can, and our bureaucrats make it so. We can do a lot of things and can provide vice on demand in private, hidden ways but should we? We can monetize the sport more and wring every last penny out of fans, but we do not need to do so. Money replaces loyalty. Money is up for grabs. The Supreme Court even declared it is legal. Just because it is legal does not make it right, and we have far too many people who do not know the difference nor do they care.